The Case of the Gavotte

I wish to consider a dance called the Gavotte.
There are several references, in Arbeau's Orchesographie 1588
and 1596, in Luare's Apologie de la danse 1623, and in numerous
Baroque dancing books.

Arbeau mentions that the Gavotte is a Bransle-like dance which is
danced after a suite of Bransles. It consists of doubles with the
petits sauts of the Branlse de Haut Barrois done to the left
and right, but these doubles are divided by passages borrowed at will
from the Galliarde. After some time of dancing like this, one couple
or another would detach itself from the others, the lord then kissing
all the other ladies and the lady kissing all the other lords. After
some more dancing, a second couple would come out and likewise kiss
the other lords and ladies. In some cases, the privilege of kissing
would be entirely assumed by the host and hostess.

Arbeau also gives as examples two doubles, one left and one right,
demonstrating with these two how these adorned doubles might appear,
but Arbeau tells Capriole that he may vary the given divisions at his
will. The music for the dance is in duple time, and as a dance it
appears to have been quite a maleable, game dance. It became more and
more popular in the early 17th century. It became so popular, in
fact, that Laure mentions it in the most offhand and infuriating
way.

Laure notes that the Gavotte was danced at the end of the Bransles,
but that the steps were so common and so well known that it would have
been uesless to write of them in detail. Happily, Laure also notes
that the Gavotte was danced differently in different parts of
France.

The music Laure gives for the Gavotte is in duple time, as was
Arbeau's, but the feel of the music is naturally much more Baroque
than was Arbeau's. The end of this examination comes from the true
Baroque Gavotte, a rather popular dance form in the French courts of
the 17th and 18th centuries.

Wendy Hilton, in her Dance of Court and Theater: The French
Noble Style 1690-1725, gives several examples of Gavottes in
inscruitable and inescapable Feulliet notation. By the turn of the
eighteenth century, the Gavotte was still danced to duple-time music,
but had in other ways changed greatly. The step sequence is no longer
doubles, but rather the sequence: contretemps de gavotte, pas de
bourree, contretemps de gavotte, pas assemble.

Rameau noted that the Gavotte of his day came from Lyonnois and
Dauphiny, so it is likely that what we are dealing with in the Baroque
Gavotte is a regional variant which has by luck managed to become the
dominant form. Hilton also points out several itneresting features of
the Gavotte. There is a conflicting emphasis between the step units
and the musical units. She notes that it may be difficult for the
beginner to know whether the movements are being done on the correct
beat, and an outside eye may be necessary to confirm when the
movements are being done correctly. From the floor patterns which
Hilton gives, it is also clear that the Baroque Gavotte bears little
resemblance to the dance from which the name derives. It is
intricately choreographed both in terms of step execution and floor
pattern.

So what's the point?

The point is to demonstrate that over time a dance can change
drastically, while retaining the same name. If this change in the
Gavotte, from Bransle variant to elaborate Baroque dance, can occur in
the space of a single century, what differences might we expect in
similar circumstance?

By way of example I point out that the Midrealm is in the process
of banishing the reel, Strip the Willow, by promoting another reel,
Trenchmore. Trenchmore is first described in Playford in the 1720's,
but the name Trenchmore is mentioned well into the Elizabethan period.
What evidence do we have that the dance we have been teaching is in
any way period? None.

The same caveat applies to steps. In an earlier issue of The
Letter of Dance, for example, Arbeau's basse danse was
reconstructed with a represe derived from Negri. What proof is there
that Arbeau's reprise bore any resemblance to Negri's? None. Since
Arbeau was intending the reader to develop an appreciation for the
very late basse danse as described in Arena and Copeland, one might be
tempted to ask, and rightly so, why one should use a step that is from
another country nearly a century later than the dance itself.

The point, gentle reader, is that in our enthusiasm to present
danceable dances, we might do well to be a little more concerned with
the purities. The world of professional dancers and dance historians
has developed a wary view of us over the decades. Incidents of
outright theft of materials aside, our scholarship has often been
questioned. It would do others' perception of us no end of good if
SCA dancemasters kept opinions phrased as opinions, used the phrase
"may have been" more liberally, and respected the amazing lack of
incontrovertable evidence by respecting alternate reconstructions.